Avery ~ 6 months

Avery had her 6 month well baby visit today. No immunizations though, due to her slight case of pneumonia. [while in Indiana we noticed Avery was just not herself on Sunday. She was extremely cranky and was crying like she was in pain. She also had not being eating hardly anything for the past couple of days. She wasn't sleeping very well either. I finally broke down and took her into the ER thinking she might have an ear infection. She didn't have a temp, her ears and throat looked fine so they decided to do some tests. She had an IV put in to draw blood (in the foot) and she was literally covered in blood all the way up to her knee and the bed was soaked around her foot. They put a catheder in her to get a urine sample and then took x-rays of her chest. Everything came back fine, except for the x-ray........showing some fluid in her left lung. She was put on antibiotics throught the IV....but at some point the IV came out and so then they had to jab her with a shot to the muscle :( She was such a trooper........and so was Allie. It was a looooonnnnng 5 1/2 hours there.]

Once she's done with her antibiotics we'll take her back to get her immunizations up to date. Other than that she's 15 lbs 10 ounces - that's 34% on the chart, 25 inches long - that's 30% on charts, and her head is at around 15%.

I know she looks chubby now, but it's looking like she'll be a petite on once she gets moving around. She's pretty much sitting up by herself. She usually leans forward too much, but can keep herself from falling over by using her hands to stop her. She is soooo close to rolling over. I really think that could happen any day now. Crawling should be sometime in the near future, she can really get her head pushed up with her arms and pushes off with her feet, but doesn't get anywhere yet. She has the cutest smile and beautiful eyes. She is so loving and still a mama's girl. Loved her rice cereal until she got sick.......I'm sure she'll still love it once she's feeling better. Then we'll start giving her some veggies too. That's about it for now. We love our little "AV" ( as Allie calls her.)

Where A Kid Can Be A Kid.......

.....or a Mom, Grandma & Grandpa can be a kid! You all know what I'm talking about........Chuck E Cheese's!!!!! While we were in Lafayette my Mom and Dad wanted to take Allie to Chuck E Cheese. They took Monday off so we could spend the day there (ended up being the evening). Allie had never been before, but she knew all about Chuck E Cheese from commercials and seeing coupons I've been saving. When we got there Chuck E Cheese wasn't around, but towards the end of our day he came out to a birthday party at the table next to us. She didn't want to have anything to do with him! As we were leaving to go up to the prize counter he started back towards us. My Dad and I were still at the table gathering things up and I heard a shrill little scream and Allie was sprinting (I mean this is the fastest I've ever seen her run) back towards us! I don't know why she is so afraid of him, but surely she'll grow out of it someday.

Anyway, I think we all had a really good time there. My Mom seemed to enjoy skeeball and I was on fire at the basketball thingy. Every time someone plays it and doesn't score over 60 points the tally for the amount of tickets you'll get keeps going up. The first time I played I got 54 points.....so close! Next thing I know there are a couple people that must have been watching and wanted to play against me to see if they could be me......not a chance! I wasn't going to leave until I scored over 60....finally the last token of the night I got 63 and the tally was 51 so we got 51 tickets too. Allie was excited to have them to use towards her prize.

Anyway, so funny story on our way to Chuck E Cheese's. Allie was exhausted and actually fell asleep about 5 minutes before we got there. We pulled up and tried telling her that we were there. She wouldn't budge. So, I took her hand and again, told her we were here. She sort of opened her eyes so I proceeded to tell her over again and asked her if she still wanted to go. She mumbled yes and fell right back to sleep! Poor little thing! She finally snapped out of it, but she was still so tired......maybe that's why she was afraid of Chuck.....she's always extra sensitive when she's tired.

Another funny thing. Before we went to Chuck E Cheese we ate lunch (Arni's......yum) and picked up Avery's prescription. We knew then that Allie was tired so instead of going to Chuck E Cheese then, we went to GG's........hoping she would take a nap. On our way there my Mom said I think A-L-L-I-E is about out (she spelled out her name). Allie sat straight up and said NO! She didn't take a nap while we were there anyway, but I did!

FUn, FUN, FUN!!

Baby Central

The girls and I headed back to Lafayette for an extended weekend (Fri - Tues). The main reason for going back was to go to a baby shower for my Aunt Amy and new cousin Kiya. She is such a cutie!! Of course all of the little ones were there and we had to get a picture of all 4 together. I also found out that two more of my cousins are expecting by the end of the year (Crystal and Alicia)! How exciting.....and then Derek's sister, Sarah, is due with her baby girl in March! We just keep expanding!!


From L to R: Avery (6 mo), Jenna (4 mo), Conner (3 mo), Kiya (1 mo)

xoxo HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! xoxo

My friend, Nicole, took these pictures of the girls and they turned out great...enjoy!

UPDATES

I know I never updated anyone via the blog on how Derek's nose was and I am behind on updating the girls as well. So here it goes:

• Derek did go to the ENT Dr the next day and got his nose rebroken to put back into place. OUCH! It does look a lot better, but is still a little crooked. He got his stitches taken out too....and has a nice scar from it. The Dr did tell him that he couldn't play any contact sports for the next 3-6 months. He was dissapointed about that and asked if there was any way he could get a mask. The Doc said no, the military doesn't give that kind of stuff out. After seeing Kramer get a broken nose in a recent Purdue basketball game and with him coming back in a face mask Derek decided to go out and buy one too. He got the Dr's permission and is now back to playing indoor soccer.


• Derek also had a recent oral surgery. They had to tear away his gums to expose a tooth that was dead and hack at that tooth to make it smaller so they could put a crown on it.


• I can't believe that I've missed Avery's 5 month post! She'll be 6 months on Saturday!! Time has just flown by.........so much so that I had been holding out on giving her cereal for the longest time. I had given her some between 4 & 5 months with a medicine dropper a few times, but then never gave her any more. Finally, I gave her some with a spoon last week and she LOVED it. She smiled the biggest smile. I know she was probably thinking, "It's about time Mom!" She can sort of sit up by herself now, but tends to lean forward so much that she eventually falls. She is enjoying tummy time a little bit more and sometimes it looks like she's going to start scooting forward. She still adores her big sister even though she isn't so nice to her sometimes. She's definitely a Mommy's girl and is soooooo spoiled.


• Allie is getting big too! Since we've moved in to the new house she has started going potty on the big girl potty more than ever. We really thought the move would make it worse so that was a very nice surprise. Also, one day we were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner and she looked back at the refridgerator and then started singing the alphabet. We were in shock! We work with her alot on it but she's never said it all the way through by herself before. I told my Mom and Dad about it and they just figured that she had been doing it for a while because she was singing it for them while they were here for our move!


• As for me, nothing is new. My Mom and Bryan came to visit this weekend and so I went snowboarding with Derek and a couple friends. The house is slowly getting put together. We're enjoying playing Mario Kart once the girls go to sleep for the night........and that's about it!

Our Little Snowboarder

So, Derek has been talking about getting Allie on the slopes before she was even born and since he had yet another snow day today we took the opportunity to fulfill his dream. We went with two other couples to Mad River Mountain Resort in Bellefontaine, OH and spent the entire day there. It's actually the best midwest resort I've ever been to. I really thought Derek's dreams would be shattered because Allie tends to be quite shy and doesn't usually like to try new things. Boy was I wrong about this though! She had a BLAST! I was so surprised, happy and excited for her.......and Derek. She was absolutely ADORABLE!!




Avery hanging out in the lodge

Allie & Adeline

Riding up the belt to the top of the slope

This was the best video I got of her. I can't believe she actually went by herself! My favorite part about this video is seeing the trust and faith she has in her Daddy by letting go and knowing that he will be there to catch her by just raising her little arm up. I was kind of sad because as I started taking another video the camera died and Allie actually went down the slope by herself for quite a while then. She was absolutely awesome. We LOVE her! She definitely has the snowboarding bug now because she has since said, "I want to go snowboarding again" 5 or 6 times since she turned her board in!

Yes, as you can see from the pics I finally got back out on a snowboard. It's been five years since I was last on one and I broke my wrist the last time I was on one too. So it took a lot of courage on my part, but I did it! I was quite nervous and very slow and cautious. I got frustrated pretty easily, but at least I did it, right!?!

LET IT SNOW!!!!

It's been snowing like crazy yesterday and today. I don't know exactly how much we have, maybe 10 inches. It's hard to tell because there is a layer of ice under the snow and then snow under the ice! At any rate, we decided to take advantage of all the snow and head outside and play!! I was a little apprehensive at first about taking Avery out there, but Derek talked me into it. It really wasn't all that cold out because there wasn't any wind. She fell asleep while we were getting all bundled up to go out so she was wrapped up nice and warm in her carseat for the majority of the time we were out there (which was only really about 20 minutes). But in that time we went sledding, made snow angels, threw some snowballs and attempted to make a snowman........the snow was just too powdery though. Allie really enjoyed being out there and it was so much fun watching her! I think I got some good shots of our fun in the snow......it was so hard to choose which ones to post. Believe me, I have a lot more!!!

Soccer MADNESS

Last night was the start of indoor soccer for Derek. He's been looking forward to it for a couple of months now. He decided to put a team together while they were all playing in the league here on base. Anyway, the games start times are kind of crazy ranging from 8:30 to 11:20. Of course, Derek's team started at 11:20 last night. I would have liked to have gone and I know Derek wanted us to come and watch, but it was just too late for the girls.

Anyway, 10 minutes into the game someone plowed into Derek and left a huge gash in his forehead, broke his nose and messed up his knee. It was really weird because after I was in bed last night I had a feeling that I should come down and get my cell phone in case Derek's truck wouldn't start or something. I woke up at 1:30 knowing that he should be home and went down and saw that I had 4 missed calls on my cell phone and a new voicemail. It was Derek calling on Lauire's phone telling me everything that happened and that they were on the way to the ER. I tried calling Derek, Joe and Laurie and no one would answer so I got the girls up and we headed into the ER to see him. Just as I had pulled on base Laurie called to fill me in on everything and said he was fine and that they would bring him home........but I was practically there so we stayed.

I have a feeling he won't be playing any more soccer for the rest of this league (against his will of course). His nose is pretty bad and he can hardly walk with his knee being so messed up. (I guess it's just a big ball of blood in there.) It was funny because he was crawling up the stairs last night and then this morning little miss Allie was hobbling down the stairs saying her knee hurt!

Derek is going in today to try and get his nose back into place........

The Move

What a trying 4 day weekend!!! It didn't seem like anything was going right.......things surely couldn't get any worse, but it did.........we just kept pushing through all of our trials and tribulations and we have prevailed.........so far. Here's a summary of our move:

Derek got the moving truck on Thursday afternoon, which happened to be the coldest day of the winter so far. My Mom and Dad got to our house around 7 and Derek, my Dad and I all started loading up the truck after dinner while my Mom watched the girls. We decided we would just load the truck all the way up with whatever we could lift and have all of our help unload and then go back and load up all of the really heavy things. I think we got to bed around 2am with an almost packed truck. Derek and I were up by 6 to finish loading the last little bit and then he took off in the truck while I started boxing up a few more things. Not even 5 minutes after he left I got a call.........the truck broke down on the road outside of the subdivision. Someone couldn't come to work on the truck for at least 4 hours!! I tried to start our van to load it up and it wouldn't start........Derek's truck was stuck in the back yard from the night before when we were trying to get the trailer out. The scales to weigh everthing close at 4 and we need to get everything weighed if we want to get paid. Ugh! We call the moving truck place back and they said we could get another truck to use in the mean time. Derek and Joe head over to get that and it dies on the way to the house.........they get another one and it dies, and another one and it dies. Then they are told there is another truck they can use, but they couldn't find the keys! So they waited around for someone to bring another truck back that they knew was working and finally we had a truck.......In the mean time Laurie and I were bringing things up from the basement to load once the truck got there. 4 other guys showed up and helped bring up the heavy stuff. Then 3 more guys showed up and they all got Derek's truck out of the back yard............we got everything loaded, had lunch and then unloaded at the new house. The other truck finally got up and running and we got that one unloaded as well! We had about 13 people show up to help us, which we were so grateful for! Mom and Dad were a HUGE help by watching the girls for us. Dad helped out a lot by going back to the old house a couple times with Derek to load up the truck with the last little bit of junk we have. Joe and Laurie were also a HUGE help by spending the ENTIRE day with us on Friday to help with everything. You guys are the BEST! Our neighbors, at the old house, are letting us keep our trailer and boat in their "parking lot" for as long as we need so that helps out a lot too.
But, anyway, we're finally here. Nothing is organized yet. Our internet is up and running, satellite is up, and we should have phone by Friday. Our TV is junk now, but hopefully will get replaced since it's still under warranty. A lot of our stuff is scratched, cracked or broken but may not be such a bad thing because we need to get rid of a lot of stuff. We've already sold our pool table and shed!
We spoiled ourselves by eating out a lot this weekend.......Cheesecake Factory and El Toro were the best! We even bought Guitar Hero(I know, more junk, but this is good, fun junk...right?!)........it was a great deal since our Circuit City is going out of business. Hopefully we'll have everything organized and taken care of soon and I'll get some pics posted. We really weren't sure if we were going to like this house as much as the other but we really do love it. Even though we just found out that the foreclosure on the previous house has been postponed.........oh well, the move is done now and we are happy. If you ask Allie which house she likes better she'll say, " This one!!" We can definitely tell she does! Should be a great 15 months!

Housing Situation

What to do, what to do.............

We are still up in the air with what we should do about this situation we've been put in. There is a possibility that we could buy this home at the sheriff's auction. We've called around and supposedly there is 146,xxx still owed on the house. I'm sure they (the bank) would at least like to get that much and we've heard that they will be there bidding on it......either to get it themselves and try to resell it or just to up the bid to something reasonable for them. The last appraisal of the house was at 174,xxx, or somewhere around there, and the bid has to start out at a certain percentage of that.........I think it will start out around 116,000. We're going to the auction no matter what so we can at least see what the house sells for. If we do decide to bid on it we won't go over the max we've set for it. We have to pay 10% right there at the auction.

We've been looking at a lot of houses that are for rent. Some are in Xenia, some in Beavercreek, Huber Heights, Tipp City, and Fairborn. They've all been nice, for the most part, and we could definitely deal with it for our last 15 months here. One was exceptionally nice and is making our decision of whether or not to just move now and rent it or wait it out for the auction and take the chance of it possibly getting rented in the mean time. Most of the homes we've been looking at are comparable to the one we're in now but rent is going to go up $150 a month for us no matter what we rent. There was one that was bigger, but a lot older and we would be paying about the same there. I think it's been rented since we've looked at it because I can't find it on the rental site anymore!

We've talked with several different people on what we should do and we've heard pros and cons of both and in the end it almost equals out. We'd just be taking more of a "chance" with buying the house. It's all been so stressful. Of course, we're all sick once again and it seems to be dragging on and on. Probably because of all of the stress, lack of sleep, etc. I finally just went in to the urgent care yesterday to get some antibiotics b/c I just knew I had a really bad sinus infection. The entire right side of my face was throbbing, swollen, tender to the touch, etc and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I think Allie is pretty much over it now, but she still has a nasty sounding cough. Avery, my poor baby, I think is finally starting to feel better. She has so much phlegm that she is constantly choking on it and spitting up. Every time she sneezes she has tons of snot pouring out and then we get to perform "surgery." Hopefully it's over soon!!! All of it!

Anyway, so there is a new poll for you guys to vote on what you would do in our situation. I'll try and list the pros and cons of our options below so you'll know a little bit more about the situation and options we have..

Buying the house we're in

Pros:

• we won't have to move!
• could get a great deal on it and no matter what our mortgage payments will be even less than our current rent
• we'll get to stay in the same ward at church (9:00 am!) and Allie will get to stay in the nursery that she has FINALLY started to really enjoy
• IF we are able to sell it or rent it out it would be an awesome investment
• We'll definitely try and get a follow on here so we'd be here for 2 - 3 more years

Cons:

• We might not be able to sell or rent it and would have to be paying a mortgage and rent wherever we move to next
• If we rent, we might get stuck with someone who won't take care of the house
• We'll have to pay 10% at the auction
• If we don't win the auction we'll have to wind up moving anyway and now have less time to do it

Renting

*the house we're looking at was built in 2004 (just like the one we're in now), in a nice subdivision, in Fairborn (which is really close to base), two story, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, full unfinished walkout basement, nice big and flat back yard, huge deck, small garage*

Pros:

Won't have to worry about selling or renting a house

We'll be closer to base

Walkout basement would be nice (especially during the move)

I think it's a little bit nicer (maybe) than the home we're in now

We'll be closer to the soccer complex that Derek will be playing in for the next 3 months

We'll be closer to our friends for game night

We'll make about $4,000 in the move (DITY)

Cons:

• We'll be paying more in rent
• We'll have to change wards at church
• Allie may have a hard time in nursery once again
• We'll have to find a place to store our boat and pay whatever that fee would be
• We'll be further from the lake
• We'll have to move and we've only been here 9 months

I'm sure there are some things I'm forgetting. Derek is meeting with the JAG today so after that meeting we may be able to find out some more and, if so, I'll post it on here. Anyway, if you feel up to it you can vote. If not, that's fine too. Thanks for all of your prayers and support at this stressful time in our lives!